Woman Fails Turing Test.

A commenter comments about dating over at "Annie's Mailbox" the current online version of Ann Landers.

I dated a guy awhile back who suffered from NPD. He had no consideration of my emotional needs whatsoever. Most of our relationship went like this: We would fight constantly, we'd get to the break-up point and he would feed me some line about how he really thought we could make it work if we just tried harder and would I "just tell him already" what he was doing wrong, I'd fall for it and tell him certain things he needed to change, he would completely disregard them, rinse and repeat. 

I know what you're thinking...Sounds really one sided, yes? I would always ask him what he thought I needed to change. He would always say "Nothing. Just keep being patient." 

He would never apologize, because he never felt he did anything wrong. He would accuse me of over-reacting if I got hurt or mad at something he did. When I would point out that I was bending over backwards to try and make things work while he treated me as a carpet, his response would be "I don't expect you to." He literally felt that, since he didn't claim to expect me to put up with him, he had no reason to feel bad for not putting up any effort. 

A few other things I put up with over those two years: He expected total openness from me, but would always say "I don't feel like talking" or "I'm not comfortable talking about that" when such questions were turned on him. I went the entire two years dating the guy without ever knowing what he looked like, but he expected me to be on the webcam at least once a week. (Not even dredging up all the lies he constantly told me about when I would get pictures.) We never once had a conversation over a phone. He refused to ever get one. It was on the computer or I could just deal with not talking to him. (He claimed not talking to me didn't bother him.) He expected me to be available whenever he wanted me around, and would throw fits if I wasn't. But my request that he warn me if he wasn't going to be around any given day was "me trying to change who he was" and not only did he never do it, he started purposely hiding from me and not telling me he wouldn't be around, sometimes for a week or more, after I did something that supposedly angered him. 

It took me two long years to walk away from that mess. I kept telling myself that if I proved I was different, he would open up and change. Boy, was I stupid!